Pete the Pup is feeling feisty this morning.
He's growling his little high-pitched growl and shaking the bejeezus out of the seemingly indestructible rubber mallard we gave Ruthie for Christmas a couple of years ago.
Now he's dashing wildly back and forth across the bedroom floor, looking for something to attack.
A few minutes ago, he and Ruthie were engaged in a spirited argument - facing off and barking and snapping at each other. I think it's just play, but sometimes it's worrisome.
Ruthie jumped up onto the couch with Maria and me last night while we watched TV and Pete, who apparently has come to regard the couch as his exclusive domain, went crazy and started growling and snapping at Ruthie. This was mildly comical, since he's still too small to jump up onto the couch from the floor. His usual route onto the couch is up the stairs behind it and through the bannister rungs onto the back of the counch.
Pete seems generally unimpressed with Ruthie's size and recognizes that he has the edge with his Aussie speed and agility. He backs off only when he senses she's ready to do him some serious harm.
But he's always pushing and probing and intruding into her comfort zone.
Maria had hoped they could be buddies and we see occasional indications that things may turn out that way. At least they're not mortal enemies.
When we turn them out into the back yard, Pete bounds out the back door right behind Ruthie and shadows her around the yard. When she sits and stares at the treeline behind our property, Pete sits next to her and gazes in the same direction, probably wondering all the while what it is that they're looking for.
He's looking to her for instruction on how to be a member of our pack, but he's also asserting himself whenever possible.
He wasn't the Alpha dog in his litter. That position was occupied by a white-faced female pup who shouldered her siblings aside at feeding time and grew conspicuously faster than the others.
But now we wonder if Pete wasn't second in the pecking order.
Ruthie will be eight years old this year, which makes her 56 in dog years. It's clear that Pete's energetic pestering wears her out. She's turned to me several times lately, after a fierce barking exchange with Pete, with a pleading look as if to say, "Would you please get this kid away from me?" Sometimes she even whines about it.
We can only hope that she can endure until Pete outgrows his impulse to tweak her up, since she seems to be losing her ability to put him in his place.
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